da realsbet： Weekes, in particular, turned out to be the nemesis of the Indian bowlers
da 888： Partab Ramchand18-Jul-2005The first West Indian side that visited India in 1948-49 waslargely an unknown quantity. The Caribbean cricketers familiar toIndians were Learie Constantine and George Headley. Constantinehad long since retired and Headley, almost 40 when he landed inIndia, was in the evening of an illustrious career.
Weekes, in particular, turned out to be thenemesis of the Indian bowlers. Before coming to India, he hadalready scored 141 in the final Test against England. Hecontinued from where he left off and successive scores of 128,194, 162 and 101 followed in the first three Tests against Indiato complete a feat of five hundreds in consecutive innings, arecord that stands to this day.
But the victorious series at home against England the previousseason had helped unearth the burgeoning talent of the three W’s- Everton Weekes, Frank Worrell and Clyde Walcott. The threegreats were to be the main pillars of the West Indies batting forthe next decade and more, and two of them, Walcott and Weekescame to India.Headley had a minimal role to play in the series. In the firstTest at New Delhi, he was out for two and did not play again. Butthe contributions of the two W’s, opening batsmen Allan Rae andJeff Stollmeyer, middle-order batsmen Robert Christiani and allrounder Gerry Gomez saw to it that the West Indies not onlyscored a packet of runs but also made them at a pretty niftyrate.Weekes, in particular, turned out to be the nemesis of the Indianbowlers. Before coming to India, he had already scored 141 in thefinal Test against England. He continued from where he left offand successive scores of 128, 194, 162 and 101 followed in thefirst three Tests against India to complete a feat of fivehundreds in consecutive innings, a record that stands to thisday.He scored a century in each innings in the third Test at Calcuttaand seemed headed for a sixth hundred before he was rathercontroversially run out for 90 in the next game at Madras. In thefinal Test at Bombay, Weekes was restricted to scores of 56 and48 and yet finished the series with 779 runs at an average of111.28, still the highest aggregate by any batsman against India.Predictably, the other batsmen were in the shadow of Weekes’outstanding performance but the West Indies batted in depth.Walcott got two hundreds while Gomez, Christiani, Rae andStollmeyer all got one each.At New Delhi, the batsmen notched up four hundreds in the sameinnings, a rare feat. The relentless run machine was responsiblefor successive totals of 631, 629 for six declared, 366, 336 fornine declared and 582. The Indian bowlers chalked up the kind offigures they would see in their bad dreams and Vinoo Mankad hadthe mortification of conceding 176 runs and 202 runs insuccessive innings. The only two spells of lion-hearted bowlingwere by CR Rangachari, who took five for 107 at New Delhi, andDattu Phadkar, who finished with seven for 159 at Madras.Rangachari in fact had reduced West Indies to 27 for three on thefirst morning of the series but so great was the batting depththat they recovered to score over 600.The strength of the West Indies revolved around their batting.The bowling was pretty ordinary, something driven home by thefact that not until the last innings of the series did a bowlerregister a five-wicket haul. In Prior Jones, John Trim and Gomezthey had three honest purveyors of seam and swing and in additionthey had FJ Cameron, D Atkinson and skipper John Goddard to bowlmedium paced off-breaks. But they could make little headwayagainst the Indian batting in which Vijay Hazare and Rusi Modiwere outstanding.Hazare battled his way to 543 runs with two hundreds and Modiset up an Indian record by scoring 560 runs with one century andfive fifties. In addition, Hemu Adhikari and Mushtaq Ali came upwith three-figure knocks.Indeed, in batting depth and bowling weakness the sides wereevenly matched and this resulted in four of the five Tests beingdrawn. The West Indies notched up the lone and decisive victoryof the rubber at Madras where they had an unexpected bonus in theform of a rest day. Matches were played without a rest day in theseries but January 30th being the first death anniversary ofMahatma Gandhi, public opinion decreed that it be declared aholiday.India were 225 for six in reply to West Indies’ 582 at the end ofthe third day and when they resumed after a day’s break, the WestIndian seam trio of Jones, Gomez and Trim were fresh enough tobowl out the Indians for 245 and 144, giving West Indies victoryby an innings and 193 runs.However, India fell just short of leveling the series in thefinal Test at Bombay. The bowlers, for once, did well inrestricting West Indies to 286 and 267 and this left India with395 minutes to get 361. The scores tell us that India finishedwith 355 for eight but history has recorded that there were stilltwo minutes to go and one ball still to be bowled in Jones’penultimate over when umpire Joshi, probably affected by thetremendous tension and excitement all round the Brabournestadium, called over and lifted the bails signaling the end ofthe match and the series.The West Indies had also resorted to negative tactics towards theend of the game and the team left the field to booing and jeeringfrom the packed crowd. It certainly remains one of the mostexciting Test matches played in India, notwithstanding thedramatically frustrating denouement.
